Discwoman And Changing The Record Of All-Male Electronic Lineups

Krewella are one of few female acts regularly booked at major electronic festivals (photo credit: Robb Cohen/Invision/AP)

Gaze down the lineups of an EDM festival--or the Highest-Paid DJs list--and you'd be forgiven for thinking electronic music is only produced by white men. Of the 231 acts at this year's EDC Las Vegas, just eight included female members--that's 3.5% of all artists. At the forthcoming Electric Zoo in New York, only six of 92 acts announced so far were women or included a female member.

Though acts such asNERVO and Krewella are regularly featured on such lineups, allowing them to command the fees that might soon land them on the Electronic Cash Kings list, the gender disparity onstage remains dismal--and that's not just in the U.S.A 2015 report by female:pressure, a network of female electronic artists, found that men comprised 82% of 44 international festivals' lineups. There's even a tumblr dedicated to pointing out very male lineups.

"We were playing Tomorrowland in Belgium and we really were the only females backstage," Jahan Yousaf, one half of Krewella, told FORBES. The duo, comprised of sisters Jahan and Yasmine, were sued by their former third male member, Kris Trindl, last year. They were promptly attacked in the blogosphere by many—even Electronic Cash King Deadmau5--and endured a barrage of sexist comments including allegations that they merely used their sex appeal to sell songs while Trindl made the music.

"It’s important to recognize that there is still certain stereotypes," Yousaf continued. "There are so many rumors that go around still–if there’s a woman that’s successful it’s because... she slept with this person or she bought her way into this rather than her just having talent."

At a festival, women are nearly exclusively heard onstage in the controlled samples of female vocals that comprise EDM hooks. For listeners at home, women are visible only in thesexualized stock artof YouTube videos. And it's an industry secret that top male DJs have, on occasion, written requests into their riders for attractive women to serve refreshments backstage for them.

Now several women are working to balance those festival turntables. Discwoman, a New York-based platform and party-thrower,represents and showcases female-identified DJ talent in the electronic music community through regular club nights. Since its first event at Brooklyn's Bossa Nova Civic Club in 2014, Discwoman has thrown events with all-female lineups in Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Detroit and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"You can't just talk about it, you have to do something," says Frankie Hutchinson, who founded Discwoman with DJ Emma Olson and Christine Tran. "We saw that to change lineups we would have to get more control in booking, so that's why we went into being a booking agency," Hutchinson explained while in Detroit during Movement festival, where Discwoman were running an all-female, 15-hour show with local collective Girls GoneVinyl toraise funds for a scholarship for production classes atDetroit's Music Industry Academy.

There is a concern that gender-specific lineups tokenize female DJs, but without bringing attention to the artists made invisible by the systemic under-representation of women, it seems impossible to shift the scales.

"I was booking women guests and my DJ partner is a woman, but I actually thought it was cheesy to market it as a 'women event,'" said Emma Olson, who has made music as Umfang for several years and long DJed a weekly night at Bossa Nova Civic Club. "But I realized it's important to be outspoken about it instead of pretending we've moved on and that everything's fine--to talk about the fact that it's not."

While there are a small handful of festivals organized by women, including Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival and the more underground Sustain-Release,female under-representation is systemic across the industry,at all festival sizes, from artists to booking agents. AsThump reported,at major booking agenciesin the U.S., women comprised between 3%-14% of all artists on their rosters.

"I can't name a festival that has an equal lineup," says Olson. "Like Berghain's Panorama bar [in Berlin] has a lot of female residents and that's great, but women aren't booking festivals."

It's a problem New York nightlife guru and DJ Venus-X spoke about at length during aroundtableon women in electronic music earlier this year. “It’s the [festival] network itself– it starts a year before, through a network of power that has very little do with popularity or talent itself. It has to do with managers... You’re my boy, I’m your boy. You’regoing to put my artist on, we’regoing to manufacture success.”

Even Olson notes that working with technology--including mixers or synthesizers--is not encouraged nearly as much among women, saying: "It's rare that a 6-year-old girl will get a synthesizer or a computer as a gift."

And then there’s the issue of over-sexualized marketing of female acts -- something NERVOare cautious of. "The only thing we’re a little wary of is we didn’t want to wear anything too skimpy. We always wanted the music to speak first – when you’re a girl you have to be a little more careful about that,”the duo's Liv Nervotold FORBESlast year. (It's not a problem Calvin Harris encountered when he stripped to hisunderwearfor an Armani campaign.)

"I had someone that wanted to represent me for a while and it quickly became this, 'Your body is an asset and we should utilize that,'" recalled Olson. "What he was seeing is, 'Your body is marketable,' which was really manipulative and hard to navigate."

In order to countersuch monolithic presentations, "we need to have the mentors, the networks, the role models," says Girls GoneVinylco-founder Maggie Derthick. Hutchison says female bookingsare on the increase, but looks forward to the day women are integrated intolineups rather than segregated to one showcase.

"We need to change the dialogue to make it okay for women to try the same exact things as men are," concluded Krewella's Johane. "I think with time we will see equal amounts of women on these lineups."

Electronic music in the U.S. has come a long way from its rootsamong mostly black, Latino and queer club-goers and its mainstream must keep changing. Perhaps one day the DJ Sprinkles, JLins and Black Madonnas of the world will have equal footing on lineups filled with artistscalled Bro Safari and Black Tiger Sex Machine.

That time is getting closer: NERVO earned an estimated $10 million over the past year—not enough to make the Electronic Cash Kings list, but it’s clear that the beat of a more balanced drum machine is approaching.